TELOS | The Gardens

 Behind the Homestead, residents, members and their guests will find the terrace gardens filled with edibles and ornamentals commingling with fruit- bearing espaliered trees, vegetables, and herbs.  P. Allen Smith uses a vast plant palette to delight his guests' senses and for an immersive and engaging walk.  Smith designed the garden complex to inspire, intrigue, and engender surprise.  With such evocative descriptions, how could one not be inspired to explore? 

The gardening and farming practices at TELOS are on exhibit for all visitors to learn from, and have been chronicled extensively on Smith’s PBS television shows ‘ Garden Home,’ and ‘Garden to Table’.  The property also has an acre rose garden that serves as a conservancy for varieties of the first American developed rose, the Noisette.  The garden is preceded by an imposing vista creating a Hydrangea Allee, bordered by pyramidal hollies.  In the Spring, guests have a special treat as immediately adjacent to the house is an area affectionately named ‘Daffodil Hill”, which now has over 1,300,000 blooms that turn the entire hillside into a color block of shimmering buttercup, yellow, and gold in the early months each spring.  Smith adds tens of thousands of additional bulbs to the Farm every year.  Each season reveals its own delights; for example, Smith’s popular ‘Pumpkin House’ is crafted from over 50 varieties of pumpkins and squash — perfect ‘photo op’ for Farm visitors.

Further afield is the organic vegetable garden, which is laid out in an askew grid intersected with green tunnels, towering hoops with jade-colored flowers, roses, and other ornamentals.  Heirloom varieties of edibles are grown and harvested in this area, and it is also home to Smith’s flower-cutting garden.  Around Mother’s Day, guests are presented with a special treat; this is when the 40-plus varieties of peonies in the cutting garden are at their top bloom.    

The vegetable garden is sectioned into manageable garden beds that grow everything from asparagus to tomatoes and lettuce.  Besides all of the delicious foods that the garden produces, it also acts as an educational resource for Farm guests to learn about gardening, design, and organic gardening techniques. The produce grown in this space is used in meals for Farm guests, gifted to the families of the Farm team, and are also shared with local friends who own restaurants. 

At the end of the year, a special delight for Smith is to harvest cedar, pine, magnolia, and other botanicals from the Farm to decorate the main house, farm buildings, and entrance gates.   The farm is alive with seasonal activities that highlight the earth’s gifts and demonstrate sensible and responsible harvesting practices.